Ever since Kelly died and I also learned that one of my dad’s sisters has lymphoma, I’ve been growing out my hair so that one day it will be long enough to donate to an organization like Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve got fantastic hair: it’s thick, grows well, and can be pretty damn shiny when I remember to leave the conditioner in for at least two minutes. If you don’t believe me, take a gander below: Read the rest of this entry »

A lot’s happened since you died. I finally tipped over into being an agnostic and have been going through a lot of intense therapy. I really wish you could have been here to rant at when I lost some friends because of my behavior because you were always awesome at getting me to see the funny side of things or to commiserate with.

Ever since I changed jobs and pared down the list of people whose LiveJournals I read, I’ve been spending a whole lot of time in my head and I think about you now and then. Most often, I think about the vow I made to make each day of my life better because it’s one more day I have that you don’t, to say “Yes, and…” to more opportunities, and the promise I made when I turned 31 to make you proud of me wherever you are.

That last part? I’m not entirely there yet, and I am also wondering if it’s something I should give up on because I don’t see in myself the kind of near-universal compassion, friendliness, and acceptance that surrounded you. The fact that you still liked me despite the faults I am learning that I have still astounds me, and I wonder if I’ll ever find another female friend like you again.

Today I’m going to talk about you in therapy. I’m going to talk about why I’m still pissed off that you’re dead, how I feel like a failure because I don’t think I’ve done enough to honor your memory, how I’m finally as old now as you once were because my birthday will always be two days before the anniversary of your death, and how next year (if nothing catastrophic happens) I’m finally going to be older than you.

I make a lot of promises to myself and while I’m not very good at keeping all of them, I’m glad (and sad) that I was able to keep this most recent one.

In April, I was talking with a friend in Houston, Texas named Corey with whom I’ve kept in sporadic contact for about eight years. We were having a catch-up conversation when he mentioned that his father had finally succumbed to the cancer that he’d been suffering through for at least a year.

That’s just one more person who has been claimed by “this fucking disease” as another friend of mine whose father died about a year before Kelly did said at her wake. Corey and I compare notes on our therapy process often, but I’d say he’s way further down on the atheism scale than I am. He’s angry, and hurt, and alone, and it hurt me to know that he’s been doing all this hurting by himself.

So when he said that with a little bit of the money he and his sister had gotten from his inheritance, he wanted to fly me down to visit him over the Memorial Day weekend, how could I say no? Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, I was sitting down to enjoy a cup of hot chamomile tea with lemon and honey at the Starbucks on the corner of 66th and Lexington when I overheard a man talking to a woman seated at a table against the wall a little behind me. The table was littered with the pages of one of the tabloid newspapers, and he was talking about one of the things he had read.

I don’t exactly recall how his rant started, because I was trying very hard not to overhear, especially when he started talking about how New York Governor David Patterson has been trying to introduce a same-sex marriage bill into the state constitution. What followed was the usual rhetoric I hear from homophobic people who call themselves Christians, sprinkled with some truly bizarre comments on how President Obama might be gay, something about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and fellatio…

I have blog entries to write, thoughts about fiction to post, etcetera, but if you’ve been following my Twitter feed (see link list on right) you can see that I leave the office very late most of the time and have been having home Internet problems and thus can’t write.

However, the ‘tubes have been unclogged, the last of the three people I needed approvals for regarding my big Texas vacation post is getting a chance to look at it again, and tonight! I will be making a guest appearance on the Triple Feature movie podcast along with my editor Gordon McAlpin of the Multiplex webcomic, Joe Dunn creator of Joe Loves Crappy Movies, and our host Tom Brazleton, creator of Theater Hopper. Topics of discussion will include the debated Top 10 Science-Fiction movies list, Moon (short version: It’s freaking amazing!), and other things.

To listen in, sign up using this link, and I’ll see you tonight at 10 pm Eastern!

The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

A-fucking-men.

The same spirit forged the same words, in multiple languages, for three different brands of faith. Why can’t people see that?

Why do people think that one religion has to be better than the other? So what if your religion tells you I’m going to Hell if I don’t believe in the same kind of God you do? If you tried your best to “save” me and I didn’t want to be saved, then you tried your best and your God shouldn’t fault you for not being stronger than an “evil” that he created, right?

And if I don’t directly harm you by my “heathen” ways, then you should have no problem living side-by-side with me, working at the same workplace, taking the same public transportation or driving on the same roads. You’ll have your faith, I’ll have my non-faith, you’ll go to Heaven, and I’ll just die.

One of the things I love about Twitter (and pingbacks, and Google searches) is that you can find out who’s been writing about things you’ve written or things you’ve done.

Jon M. Reid is a writer, a musician, and a Christianity-focused blogger who has been doing a series of posts that deconstructed the segment I did on “This American Life” called “This I Used to Believe.”

The first two segments are linked at the bottom of his third post, which focuses entirely on the radio story, but I encourage all of you to read the entire thing anyway because yes, this is a whole and full story.

I’m also going to be writing about my responses to these pieces, but first I know I have to tell you about my recent vacation to Texas and the three friends I have who are in various stages of grief.